I want to take the opportunity to publicly thank Dustin at Midwest Tinting in Overland Park (the 7801 Shawnee Mission Parkway location) for doing an excellent job on my Camaro with regard to XPEL Paint Protection Film, and ceramic tint.

A little background: Prior to attending college, I had worked at a car dealership. When I was young, my father owned a body shop; a good friend of ours also owns a shop. So, I was raised with the mindset that any automotive job done had to be perfect. My expectation is high in the regard.

Having tinted windows myself, and having applied vinyl, I am thoroughly versed with the principles of application. I also am well aware of the prevalence of flaws - what to look for, where to look, etc. I had heard excellent things about Midwest Tinting, but I hadn't seen much work from them. Of everything that I had seen, however, I really appreciated the quality. I had spoken with Ron and Dustin on multiple occasions; both of them communicated with professionalism, and they were compassionate about the work they did; it was very clear that they took a lot of pride in their work, and it is this aspect that drove me to select Midwest Tinting over regional competitors, which I investigated equally thoroughly.

The tint was applied with proper window prep. One of the most common issues in tint application is the failure to remove all debris from the glass surface. Namely, debris which are left behind from window prep. Often, what happens is the cloth used to prepare the window will leave dust. This dust sets in the lower third of the window. A lesser-experienced tinter will dispel this dust as being an issue; they will simply tint over it. The tinting quality I received from Dustin was extraordinary. First and foremost, there were no visible dust particles; no visible bubbles, wrinkles, or anything of that nature. The tint extends to the edge of the windows; that is to say, the tint has filed edges. There is not so much a quantifiable amount of visible glass at the edge; my best explanation is that the film extends all the way to the edges. I am floored by this; this is better than I had envisioned it to be.

That said, the icing on the cake, proverbially speaking, was that I got XPEL Paint Protection Film applied. Dustin did an excellent job on this as well; the edges are even, there are no cuts on the paint (patterns are lathed with a computer initially, and then tweaked to exact fit, when necessary). There are absolutely no bubbles, no flaws. I had the front clip done 24" back, upper and lower bumper, the fenders, the mirrors, and the insides of the door handles (where you would scratch it with longer fingernails). This sounds all well, right? It gets better! I have a 2011 Synergy Green 2SS/RS. This means that I have very shiny paint with very flat stripes. The recommendation, obviously, is to not put glossy film over flat surfaces. Therefore, Dustin informed me that they can get a flat version of the film. So, I asked him if it were possible to cut out the dual rally stripes. He said, "Sure". I continued, jokingly, saying "Can you get the glossy film between the rally stripes and the pinstripes around the rally stripes?" Dustin responded, "That'd be tricky." I told him that I was kidding; it was no big deal; matching up to the edge of the pinstripes would be sufficient. I would compromise on having the intermediate green area between the stripes done with flat material. I left the car at 8:30AM, and it was ready by about 5PM. When I arrived, I was shocked to see the the area between the rally stripes and pinstripes was done in glossy material, and none of the stripes were done. This blows my mind; how is this possible? It is possible because he is just that good. I wouldn't have been on here writing a book about this if I did not feel passionate about his quality myself.

So, my hat goes off to the great staff at Midwest Tinting, including Ron, and especially Dustin. Thank you so much for taking great care of my second born! I look forward to reengaging with them to get the flat material installed on the stripes once they receive it. They did not have any of the product on-hand (the flat XPEL material is relatively new; they will have it in a matter of a few days - they ordered it).

Dustin finished the job; he applied the satin film between the glossy pinstripes and rally stripes.

Wow. Well done!

I took a couple of photos... One is head-on, the other is worst-case (with the sunlight bouncing right off of it). I'm impressed. My expectation was simply to do flat over the striped area, and glossy over the rest. This was way over the top from what I expected!